Simulations suggest that the rock, dubbed 2020 XL5, will be visiting for at least 4,000 years.
. Dubbed 2020 XL5, this roughly 1-kilometer-wide asteroid is also at L4, astronomer Toni Santana-Ros of the University of Barcelona and colleagues report February 1 inThe space rock was first spotted in December 2020, and follow-up observations suggested that it might be at L4. To confirm this, Santana-Ros and colleagues observed the asteroid using ground-based telescopes in 2021.
“There is no doubt this is an Earth Trojan,” Santana-Ros says. That decade-worth of observations let the team calculate the rock’s orbit thousands of years into the future, confirming the asteroid’s nature. It will hang around at L4 for at least 4,000 years, the team predicts. 2010 TK7, for comparison, will stick around for some 10,000 years.
Now that scientists know of two just-visiting Earth Trojans, they can envision more. The fact that the team discovered a second object means that 2010 TK7 isn’t a rarity or loner, Santana-Ros says. “It might be part of a family or population.”
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